Does It Burn You, Like It Burns Me?
by SereneCalamity
Summary: Jace had never expected to end up feeling this way. Clace. Threeshot.
1. Chapter 1

**So I had a half sort of idea for this story in my head for some time, just hadn't gotten around to writing it. Then I had a prompt from ****_michellelu78_ about a year or so ago to use the song **_**Raincoat** _**by Timeflies, and that kind of started things rolling! Also, obviously there are mentions of unsafe sex, which I don't recommend. Don't usually say this sort of thing, but just throwing it out there. Haha.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or the title. **

Clarissa Fray had moved to the tiny town of Idris at the beginning of their second to last year of high school. It was strange for people to transfer so late in their schooling, and it was even stranger for people to move to Idris, since it was a tiny town that really didn't have much to offer, and so she had been somewhat of a novelty when she had first gotten there. She had joined the cheerleading squad and she was cute and sunny and reasonably smart, so she got on with a lot of people and ended up friends with quite a few of the popular kids in the school, like Sebastian Verlac and Isabelle Lightwood. She had come from New York, which made her even _more_ fascinating to the people of the small town, and she walked with a confidence that a lot of girls her age hadn't quite mastered.

Jace Herondale had lived in Idris his whole life and he had honestly accepted that this was probably as good as it was going to get. He didn't have any big dreams of leaving the town like a lot of the people in school did. His dad had the largest building companies in the county, and it was a good job, something that he had done a lot in weekends and holidays, so it was just assumed that he would start working for his dad once he left school, get an apprenticeship and then one day take over the business. He wasn't the best in school, probably could be better but he just didn't bother all that much, and while he wanted to get away from the house he lived in with his father and step-mother, he could never actually leave the town itself, where his grandmother and cousins lived.

Their paths crossed frequently, given the small school where everyone knew everyone, and everyone pretty much knew every_thing_ about everyone, but it wasn't until a party at Isabelle and Alexander Lightwood's, his cousins, place. It was a few months through the school year, they were currently broken up for the break over the Christmas and New Years period, and there was a New Years party at the Lightwoods. Clary showed up late, and Jace was already pretty drunk, sitting on some bar stools next to Alec and Jordan Kyle, talking about a basketball game that they had watched on the TV earlier that day, when she had come in with Maia Roberts. Jordan lost interest in the conversation almost immediately, eyes on Maia from the moment she walked in, and Alec stopped talking as well, although Jace was pretty sure that it had something more to do with a handsome blonde man who had just come back from the bathroom. He didn't say anything though, Alec had never outright stated that he was into men and Jace was leaving it to him to decide when he was ready to do that.

So Jace's eyes skimmed the room, looking for something to hold his attention, and they landed on Clary, who was coming over to them, half a step behind Maia.

They ended up drinking together, and laughing a lot which was kind of unusual for Jace, and then at the end of the night, around three in the morning of the New Year, they ended up on a couch together in the downstairs den. There were two other people in the room with them, one of them who kept groaning and then leaning over a bowl that Isabelle had found in the kitchen and retching who Jace was pretty sure was named Alana or Alina or something, and then Simon Lewis, a nerdy kid who had been one of the first ones to pass out.

Jace had offered Clary the couch, he remembered that, and he remembered the gleam in her eye as she held up the only blanket that was over the back of it and said that they would have to share. She kicked off the shoes she was wearing and took off the leather jacket that was actually _Jace's_, that she had ended up with somehow, and then turned off the lights. Jace knew his way around the den easily, his cousins house was like his second home, but he moved slowly, giving her the chance to back out if she wanted to. His head was swimming but his body felt like it was on fire, nerves sparking everywhere as he laid down on the couch, turning his body to the side, curving around Clary's, and she let out this noise that was something like a sigh as she purposefully moved her hips, her ass pressing into his lap.

Neither of them had moved much at first, Clary giggling a few times as there were shouts around the house or yelps as people walked into things as they tried to find somewhere to sleep, and Jace made a disgusted noise as the girl in the corner retched again with a pitiful moan, but other than that, they were both pretty quiet. Clary was the one who made the first move, rolling her hips backwards a little again, as though testing the waters.

She was wearing a dress, and it slid up easily as Jace's hand reached out and slowly traveled up her side, reaching down to start at her knee, and then up over her thighs. Her legs were a little prickly, which Jace found strangely cute, because most girls were so careful about keeping themselves perfectly shaved, and then when his fingers touched the hem of her dress, he stopped again. Clary wiggled her hips backwards, her ass bumping against his cock in his jeans, which was getting harder and harder, and when he didn't take the hint, she let out an annoyed sigh and reached down to pull her own dress up, tugging it from his grip, wiggling around so that she could itch it up underneath her breasts.

Clary was pulsing from the alcohol in her veins and the arousal curling in her stomach, and all she wanted was Jace to reach around and bury his fingers inside her, but for some reason, he was holding back. She hadn't had much to do with him since she had come to this country hick town, but from what she had seen, he was a bit of a man whore, and had no problem with trading in one girl for another, so she didn't know why he kept pulling back.

"I swear to god," she said, speaking low but still sounding loud in the dark, quiet room. "If you don't get me off, I'm going to do it myself,_ right here_."

That jolted Jace into action and his hands moved around, making their way up the inside of her thigh before two of them buried themselves in her without any preamble. Clary's breathing hitched and she let out this squeaky gasp and her hips jerked backwards against him, before she set a steady rhythm of rolling her ass against his erection and thrusting forward to meet his fingers. It was an awkward angle, and honestly, it would have been easier if they just had _sex_ rather than Jace reaching over her and twisting his wrist at a weird angle to finger her, but he wasn't going to push things, and her ass rubbing at him through his jeans felt really good.

He came in his pants, something that he hadn't done since he was fourteen and was making out with Kaelie Whitewillow, and he made Clary come twice.

Alec had shouted at him the next day for the wet patches on the couch, but Jace had just grinned and set about scrubbing them, thinking back to the girl that he had spent the last night with.

Jace had thought that Clary would come up to him when they went back to school the next week, or that she would friend request him on Facebook, but she didn't. So then he went out of his way to look for her on Facebook and couldn't actually find her, which was a bit strange. He tried to find a subtle way of asking Isabelle about him, but she had just laughed and seen right through his excuse.

"She doesn't have a Facebook," Isabelle had told him. Jace blinked and then made a face.

"What the fuck? Who doesn't have a Facebook?" He asked.

"I don't know. _Her_," Isabelle shrugged as she looked up from where she was painting her nails a glittery purple, not looking bothered by the strange fact. "So—you gonna tell me why you care so much?" Jace just rolled his eyes and then flopped back down on the bean bag that was set up in front of the TV. Isabelle let out a laugh and then kept on painting her nails. There weren't many secrets between them, and it wasn't hard for Isabelle to guess what had happened between Clary and Isabelle.

It was during the second week back that Jace passed by Clary in the hallway, and she looked up at him with a grin, tossing her red hair over her shoulder as though they were close friends who caught up everyday.

"Hey!" Her voice was so peppy it actually threatened to give Jace a headache, reminding him a lot of Isabelle. He blinked down at her, kind of surprised at her reaction.

"Hey," he began, wondering if maybe he shouldn't be doing this. He was only really looking for some kind of hook up, had a good thing going with Kaelie, and there was also Maia, even if she was fooling around with Jordan at the moment. He wasn't looking for a _friend_, he had enough of those, and he didn't need any _girl _friends, that's what he had Isabelle for, since things were uncomplicated with her. "Did you want to hang out sometime?" He asked before he had really thought it through. Clary didn't really look surprised by his question, but she didn't answer straight away, letting out a thoughtful hum and sticking out her lower lip in consideration.

"Doing what?" Clary asked, tilting her head to the side. Jace blinked at that question.

"What?" He asked dumbly.

"You said you want to hang out sometime," Clary repeated back to him, a little slow, to emphasize her words. "What do you want to _do_ while hanging out?" Jace just stared at her, because he really hadn't planned out anything that far. Clary let out another hum and then grinned and did a little bounce, her ponytail swinging, eyes suddenly sparkling. "Wanna go out for ice cream?" She suggested.

"Ice cream?" Jace made a face at her, taken aback. "We're in the middle of winter."

"Ass end of winter, really," Clary corrected him with a shrug, not looking offended by his negative response. "But ice cream works any time of the year." Jace's expression obviously didn't say that he was particularly sold on the idea, and so Clary just shrugged again. "Well, I'm going to go to_ Sarah's Sundaes_ after school today, around four o'clock," she told him. "So, I might see you there," and then she was walking off, her hands shoved into the pockets of the purple and black coat that she was wearing.

So Jace had gone.

And they'd actually had _ice cream_, without any sex afterward.

Clary got some chocolate caramel swirl with sprinkles and wafers while Jace got strawberry and lime.

It was a bit strange, and then she had even offered to help him out with Calculus, because she had seen his test scores, and they were shit. Jace had let out a snort in surprise, and then found himself agreeing. And she had grinned and told him that he could repay her by helping her out with History, since that was one of her worse subjects.

They got together twice more before they actually fooled around again, although they still didn't have sex—they had barely actually kissed, only a couple of close mouthed kisses. Clary laughed a lot when they were together, even when they were fooling around, which Jace had put down the first time because of the alcohol, but apparently it was a common occurrence. She also talked a lot, even when they were half naked, which Jace found a bit overwhelming and he tuned a lot of it out so he could focus on what was happening, but even while doing that, he heard a lot.

She wanted to go back to New York to live after graduating high school.

She had an older brother named Jonathan Fray, but he was still back in New York.

She loved being a cheerleader.

She also loved kids, which made Jace roll his eyes, because that would make sense.

Of course the bouncy, ever-cheerful girl loved kids.

Such a cliché.

But...It was kind of cute.

She'd be good with kids, he could see that already.

Even though he tried not to think about that, because _why _would he be thinking about that?

"You don't listen very well," Clary said as she wiggled down his thighs, fingers going to his belt, tugging at it.

"I'm paying attention to what you're doing _there_!" Jace protested, waving a hand to where she was unzipping his jeans now and Clary let out a huff of a laugh.

"Typical male," Clary rolled her eyes, but then she didn't say anything else because her hand wrapped around his cock, pulling it out from his grey briefs and through the gap in his jeans, the soft palm of her hand pressing against the warm skin, fingers curling around him and giving it a few tugs. Then she was leaning forward, the heat of her mouth surrounding him and Jace's eyes rolled back, his body slumping into the pillows behind him. Clary sucked on the head of his cock and moved her hand up and down from the base of his cock, to meet her lips. Her other hand slipped under the hem of his shirt and scratching at his stomach, making his body twitch at the extra attention.

She had the best mouth.

Kaelie gave amazing blow jobs, but Clary was a hundred and fifty percent better.

She sucked and blew as though it was her favourite thing to do in the world, which was why she was so good at it. He was pretty sure that she also had a lot more _practice_ than Kaelie had, although that wasn't something he was going to ask her about—at least not yet, they didn't know each other well enough for that.

After he had finished, and she was wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand, and then she sat up, wiggling herself to the edge of the bed. Jace didn't move for a few minutes, his head still buzzing from his orgasm and his body feeling sluggish, but he followed Clary with his eyes as she ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her face, as she stood up.

"Come here," Jace said, before clearing his throat because it was a bit croakier than he intended.

"Why?" Clary asked, raising an eyebrow at him cheekily, as though there was some _big mystery_ as to why he was asking her to come back over to him.

"So I can get you off," Jace made a face at her and Clary let out a laugh and stuck her tongue out.

"Do you wanna go to the quarry?" She asked and his eyebrows pulled together.

"What?"

"Do you wanna go to the quarry?" Clary repeated, tugging at the hem of her dress, tugging it further down her legs, smoothing it out over her stomach. "Smoke some weed?" Jace was surprised, just because he hadn't realized that she smoked. It sort of seemed to go against the whole bubbly thing that she had going on, because he had never really seen her chilled out, but he shrugged anyway, rubbing his hand over his face and then tightened his core to sit up.

"Yeah, sure," he shrugged again. "You got some?"

"Always," the redhead flashed a smile at him and Jace nodded, getting up and tucking himself back into his jeans, doing up the zipper and button. "Come on, we'll take my car." It felt a bit strange, going out with her without the intention of having sex, although that was like the second time that they had come together, when they had gone out for ice cream. And then, he guessed, the next couple of times. They drove out to the quarry, Clary going further up the winding dirt road that Jace usually went, her car bumping around on the unpathed road. Jace generally went to the quarry with Alec and Isabelle, or sometimes with Kaelie, and then other times there were parties up here, although where Clary parked up was quite high up on the rocky edges that surrounded the quarry, not where they generally went.

Clary reached past Jace, into the glove box and pulled out a little silver and purple tin and a lighter, and then grabbed a cardboard flip of papers and a baggie of filters from the side panel of her door and then got out, not bothering to shut the door all the way. And then she walked right over the edge of the cliff face, sitting down with her legs dangling over the edge. Jace followed after her a bit slower, wrinkling up his nose as he looked over the edge of the cliff to the water of the quarry down below.

"Scared of heights?" Clary asked, but it wasn't in a teasing way, just a curious one, as she took out a piece of rolling paper, tucked in a filter tip and then opened up her little tin, where there was finely ground weed.

"No," Jace responded, but he was careful when sitting down beside her, and he didn't put his legs over the edge like she did.

"Alright," Clary lifted and dropped one shoulder, rolling the joint with nimble fingers, lifting it to her mouth to lick the paper and seal it and then picking up a lighter. She propped the joint in the corner of her mouth and lit the end with a rasp of her thumb against the lighter, breathing in deeply. Jace watched her chest expand on her inhale, and stay that way as she felt the smoke in her lungs. When she exhaled, she did it in the opposite direction of him, and then she took another drag, not passing it to Jace like he expected, not until she had finished her second exhale.

They passed the joint back and forth until it was burnt all the way out, not talking, everything feeling quiet and smooth around them. The sun was beginning to set, but there was still a lot of blue sky, and there were birds singing and darting about in the bushes around them. The breeze was getting a little colder now that they were in evening, but it still wasn't _cold_, now that they were part way through spring, just enough to raise a few goosebumps. It was good weed, and both of them were feeling the effects not soon after they finished the joint. Jace's limbs felt loose and his fingers were tingling, and Clary slumped backwards so that she was laying on the ground, legs still over the edge, eyes closed and smiling up at the sky.

Jace was about to say something, nearly twenty minutes later, when Clary moved, sitting up. She shuffled back from the edge and her fingers went to the hem of the dress that she was wearing. Jace's eyebrows raised as he saw her pull the dress over her head and tossed it over her shoulder. He appraised what she was wearing, and there was definitely appreciation, because she always had interesting underwear. Today it was a purple and dark blue bralette that criss-crossed over the back and then over her cleavage, and black underwear that were see-through and showed off her pert ass underneath.

"You coming?" Clary asked, turning to face Jace so that he saw her front on, and could see right through the underwear at the apex of her legs.

"Coming where?" Jace looking up at her in confusion. In response, Clary winked at him, and then she spun around and took a few running steps toward the edge of the rocky lip and then jumped. Jace's whole body lurched forward to watch as she jumped over, letting out a loud squeal that bounced off the hills and rocky edges of the quarry. There was a loud splash as she hit the water underneath and Jace couldn't help but squint as he waited for her to come back up.

It took her a good half a minute, and when her head broke through the surface, red hair slicked back against her head and back, and she had swam a good few metres away from where she had landed before looking up at him.

"Come on!" She shouted up at him, her voice echoing off their surroundings.

"Are you fucking crazy?!" Jace shouted back at her, even though he already _knew_ that he was going to jump. "It's going to be freezing!"

"It is!" She screamed back, and then she was ducking back under the water, disappearing from view. Jace felt a weird frustration build up inside him, almost like worry, until he saw her come up again, but by then, he was already getting to his feet and pulling his shirt over his head and then started undoing his belt. Clary rolled over in the water so that she was floating on her back, her red hair splaying out in the water all around her head, her feet kicking lightly in the greenish-blue water. Jace stripped down to his briefs and then felt a whole body shiver run through him from a particularly cool breeze brushed over him.

He had swum in the quarry plenty of times—he had grown up there, and this was one of the most popular swimming spots, other than a pool—and he knew that he would be safe if he jumped off, it was ridiculously deep and there were no rocks or anything in this particular area. And they weren't that high up, even though this was the highest point, but it was only about ten or eleven metres up.

"Fuck it," Jace muttered under his breath, and pushed off the edge of the cliff, letting out a shout as he plunged to the water below. The water was even colder than he expected, given they were still a _month_ away from summer, but he had to admit, it felt nice, given how warm his body felt while he was riding his high. He kicked his legs through the water, and it felt as though his body was moving in slow motion as he glided back to the surface. When he popped back up, Clary had swum back over to him, and she was grinning widely.

They kissed.

They kissed _properly_.

She circled her arms around his neck, looped one of her legs around his thigh and brought their lips together firmly. Both of their mouths were cold from the water, but they quickly heated up as Clary flicked her tongue over his lips and then between them, tangling together with his own. Jace shouldn't have been surprised by how well she kissed, but he was, and his arms went around her bare waist, holding her against him. At that point, even though they had gotten each other off with their hands and mouths, they still hadn't _kissed _like this.

Jace didn't realize how much he missed kissing.

Or _how much _he wanted to kiss her.

Both of them were kicking sporadically to make sure they were floating on the surface, and Clary tugged herself closer to him every now and then to roll their hips together, and she could feel that he was hard between them.

"Let's go over there," Clary nodded over his shoulder, over to where there were flat rocks by the waters edge. They swum over, her arms still twined around his neck so Jace was doing most of the swimming and she was floating along beside him, and they pulled themselves out of the water once they reached side. The rocks were still quite warm from the sun, and Clary shoved Jace down on his back, tugging down his briefs and then pulling down her own underwear, so that she was bare from the waist down. She didn't seem to care that they were in a completely open area and could be seen by _anyone_ as she straddled him.

"Wait—" Jace grabbed her hips just as she was about to lower herself over him. She gave him a frustrated look and waited expectantly. "I don't have a condom."

"Do you usually use them?" She asked and he nodded. "So you're clean then?" He nodded again. "I'm clean, and I'm on the jab, I ain't planning on getting pregnant any time soon—are you okay if we just...Skim over that whole thing?" Jace was surprised but then he just shrugged. "So no other questions or comments? We can just get on with it?" She grinned as he nodded, gripping the base of his cock and taking him inside her heat. "Holy _shit_," Clary sighed out, arching her back and rolling her hips as she adjusted herself to his size. "I knew you would feel good."

"Fuck yes," Jace rasped out, fingers flexing at her hips, moving her forward and backward as he waited for her to start her up and down motion. After a few beats, she steadied her knees on the rocks of either side of him and started riding him. She was tight and hot and squeezed almost impossibly tight around him, and his whole body felt hot and on edge. Jace helped her, not caring about a stone that was digging into his back, lifting her up and bringing her back down and Clary's sighs became more ragged the closer she got to her orgasm, and when her body started twitching, her back arching, he moved one of his hands to play with her clit, pressing and tugging at the little bundle of nerves before she let out a long whine, her body going lax. "Shit," Jace loved the feeling of her clenching around him, and both hands went back to her hips, thrusting up into her until he orgasmed.

It was the first time he had actually been inside someone without a condom, and her heat and feeling her close around him so intimately without any barrier was one of the best feelings in the world.

She smiled down at him, her green eyes a little blurry as she laid forward, resting her face against his neck, covering her with his body, breathing against his collarbone, and Jace lifted his hand to stroke gently up and down her back.

A month went by and they were in summer and school was almost broken up for the year. It felt weird that it was only one more year and then they would be _done_ with school completely. Alec was worried about their exams because unlike Jace, he had plans to get out of Idris, and he wanted to be an architect, maybe go study in Boston or San Diego, somewhere that just wasn't Idris. Isabelle also wanted to travel, although not to study. Jace was pretty sure she was going to go to France or Italy or somewhere beautiful and foreign and end up with some older man who was more than happy to support her.

He had told her that and Isabelle had no problems with his assessment, grinning and sticking out her tongue, saying that that would be her dream life.

Clary had agreed when he had mentioned it to her one weekend, as they were stretched out on her bed watching _The Hunger Games_, and she said that she thought Isabelle was carved out for living the high life as some sugar baby. Jace had thought about it for a few minutes, then wrinkled up his nose at the idea of his cousin getting it on with some older guy, and so he distracted himself by rolling over and pulling Clary on top of him, kissing her firmly on the mouth.

At the end of year assembly, the cheerleaders put on a presentation. Kaelie was going to be the captain next year, since they would then be seniors and Mandy O'Conner, the current captain, was graduating, which meant Kaelie was pretty much the main attraction of their presentation. She was thrown and tossed and did back flips with incredibly straight legs and precision and Jace would probably had been impressed if he wasn't watching Clary most of the time.

Her hair was up in high pigtails and she was grinning and looking as though she was having the time of her life.

There was just something about her.

She always looked as though she was completely comfortable and utterly content with where she was in every moment.

And Jace couldn't help but feel that way when he was around her.

Maybe it just rubbed off on him.

The summer holidays went faster than all the other holidays that Jace had ever had. The Lightwoods went away for the first few weeks, like they usually did, and Jace spent a lot of time at home, playing playstation, or in his pool with Sebastian and a couple of other guys from his grade at school. Jordan was completely hung up on Maia, although Jace was pretty sure that it was only a matter of time before she told him that she wasn't interested. She had seemed like she was into him to begin with, but lately she had been texting Jace and sending him snapchats in the early hours of the morning with sultry expressions on her face. Jordan knew that there was something between Jace and Maia, and there had been for a while, and he didn't seem to care because he was under the impression that it was over. He hadn't asked Jace about it, though, and Jace hadn't offered any information.

"I want to come on your face," Jace panted out, his whole body tense and so close to the edge.

Clary actually pulled all the way off his cock and looked up at him with a disgusted expression. Jace might have been pissed off at the way she had stopped sucking if this wasn't such a common occurrence. She had a habit of randomly starting conversations with him when they were rolling around in bed or on the floor or in the pool, and he had gotten used to just going along with it, and sometimes he even liked what they talked about, even if the timing was bad.

"You're kidding," she said flatly.

"C'mon," Jace attempted to give her a pout, even though his lips were puffy from how long they had kissed before she had gone down on him. "_Please_."

"I want to ride your face after," Clary compromised and Jace nodded emphatically. Clary nodded and took him back into her mouth. Her tongue teased at the glans of the head, sucking firmly, the hand that wasn't gripping his ass moving to massage his balls. They were tight and drawn up and it wasn't long before Jace was tugging at her hair, indicating that he was about to come. She pulled off him, bracing her hands on his thighs and looked up at him from under her eyelashes, her lips still pursed from how they had been around her.

She looked like she was right out of a porno, except she was better because she was _Clary_, and Jace let out a loud moan, jerking his hand around his cock as his come splashed out.

She kept her eyes open the whole time as his come streaked over her face, catching on her lips and in her eyelashes, and then after he had finished and was staring down at her, still breathing hard, she traced her tongue purposefully over her lips, licking up his come.

"_Fuck_," Jace hissed as his cock twitched, trying to harden again. He leaned forward and sealed their lips together, Clary responding straight away. He had kissed her—and other girls—before, after he had come in their mouths, but this felt different, because he could still feel the sticky strands that she hadn't licked up, and it felt strange, but still good. "Come on," he reached down, putting his hands under her arms to lift her up, which was easy, given how small she was. "I want you on my face."

Clary grinned as they moved over to his bed, and he laid down with his head on his pillow. She pulled off her bikini bottoms and climbed over him, moving up until she was above his shoulders. Jace's hands went to her ass, encouraging her downward, and then his tongue was running up her slit and she let out a loud whimper. His fingers stretched toward the crease of her ass, tugging it apart and a few fingers sliding up and down, pressing against her hole as his lips attached to her clit. Clary groaned, putting her hands against the wall behind the bed to steady herself, her hips jerking back and forth. Jace could feel how wet she was as she coated his lips and chin, and he gathered some of that with his fingers, dipping them between her legs, before sliding back up the crease of her ass and pressing lightly. Clary let out a low moan, her thighs shaking, and she was alternating between thrusting backwards onto his fingers and then forwards on his tongue.

"JaceJaceJace_Jace_," Clary was repeating like a mantra, her movements becoming even jerkier as she got closer to her orgasm. Jace felt her spill over his face, but he kept pushing his finger in and out of her ass shallowly, and he folded his tongue into a point and pressed into her until he felt her second orgasm wash over her. Clary let out a whimper until her body stopped shaking, and then she lowered herself onto the bed beside him.

"That was hot," Jace commented, staring up the ceiling at the half naked Mila Kunis poster that Sebastian had tacked there when they were younger and he had never taken off.

"If we're gonna do ass stuff, we're gonna need to use actual lube," Clary responded. "Spit _isn't_ lube." Jace couldn't help but let out a laugh at that and turned his head to face her. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was grinning as she turned her head to look at him.

"Alright," he nodded. "Lube."

"Lube," she repeated back with a giggle. They laid there for a few more minutes before she reached for where her phone was on the ground. She looked at the time and then clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. "I better go, I've got plans tonight," she said as she sat up and looked around for her bikini bottoms. She found them and pulled them on, correcting the triangles of her bikini top over her breasts and then picked up her dress, tugging it over her head. "Thanks for the swim," she winked at him and he laughed again, since they had spent exactly zero time in his pool, even though that was the reason she had come over.

Or, at least, that was what she had said, even though they had both known that ending up mostly naked with each other was inevitable.

"Oh yeah—I'm going to the movies with Simon and Maia on Saturday. Did you want to come?" Clary asked as she pulled her hair up into a ponytail.

"Simon and Maia?" Jace raised an eyebrow at her, watching as the hem of her dress lifted and showed off the black and red bottoms of her bikini as she lifted both arms to pull the elastic through her hair, twisting it into a bun. He was feeling pretty satisfied right now, but Clary was gorgeous, and he would always be down for another round, too bad she was leaving. "Are they, like, a thing?"

"I don't know," Clary shrugged. "Maybe."

"Shit," Jace snorted. "She's getting around." Clary's movements completely ceased and the easy going smile on her face dropped.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She asked, and Jae knew straight away that there was something wrong by her tone of voice.

"Oh, just...I don't know," Jace wished that he was sitting up now, and that he had any article of clothing on, especially with the way that she was looking at him, her nose wrinkled and her eyes narrowing. "Just...She's been with a few guys lately, that's all."

"And what?" The words came out in a snap. "You're fucking me and Kaelie at the same time, Alec is getting it on with Lydia _and_ Jason from the soccer team, even though we both know he _only_ wants to be with Jason. What's the difference?"

"No, I didn't mean—I'm _not_ fucking Kaelie!" Jace finally sat up.

"Oh, come on," Clary rolled her eyes at him and there was colour rising in her cheeks, and not in the normal way. "She blew you in the bathroom at that party the other week, that girl couldn't keep a secret to save her life." Jace's lips parted, but he really had no response to that, because she was right. He was pretty sure that it wouldn't help his situation if he said that he _wanted_ it to be Clary, but she had been dancing with Maia and Sebastian and they were all looking pretty cozy together and so he had gone off the blonde, so he didn't say anything. "You're saying it because she's a girl, and there's this fucking stigma around women owning their sexuality and having fun when it's not hurting anyone." There was something in the way that she was talking that made Jace's stomach clench and his chest feel tight. "It's a fucking misogynistic opinion that honestly should have died back in the seventeen hundreds, and I'm not fucking interested in hearing you preach it."

"I didn't mean it like that!" Jace attempted, but he knew that there wasn't much point. Except now there was a question in his head that he blurted out without being able to stop himself. "Are you saying _you're_ sleeping with someone else?"

"None of your business if I am," Clary shot back as she picked up her keys from his desk.

"Fucking yes it is—we're having sex without condoms!" Jace pointed out, even though that wasn't really the reason. Clary seemed to know that as well, and she shot him a withering look.

"You said that you use condoms with everyone else, and so do I," she responded. "Besides, I get checked regularly, you know, because I'm a responsible person who enjoys exploring my sexuality _safely_ and _cleanly_, even if this—" she waved her hand between them. "Was maybe a bad idea." Jace gritted his teeth together, but before he could say anything else, she was stalking out of his room, slamming his door behind her.

That really hadn't gone well.

And he really _didn't_ mean anything negative toward _her_ when he had made the comment about Maia. That wasn't the point though, because it had been negative about Maia, and Maia was Clary's friend.

Although he was pretty sure that wasn't the point either.

It was the double standard, the one between males and females.

Jace sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, flopping back down on his bed and closing his eyes.

The next time that Jace saw Clary it was three weeks later at the Lightwoods. Isabelle was throwing a party while her parents and Max were away for the weekend to see some old family friends. Her twin brother was just along for the ride, as per usual, and Jace went over early to hang out with Alec. Sebastian came as well, since it had been a while since they had hung out with him, and they parked their car around the back since they would be staying the night. Jordan would usually come around as well, but he had text Sebastian to say that he wasn't going to be coming.

"Why didn't Jordan come?" Alec asked as he popped the lids off a couple of beers, tossing the caps towards the recycling bin under the counter and then handing them out.

"Crying over Maia," Sebastian answered with a shrug as he lead the way out to the pool.

"I thought things were going well with Maia?" Alec lifted an eyebrow at Sebastian, who just shrugged again.

"Nah, she's dating that Simon guy now. Like, exclusively," Sebastian replied. That would explain why all the suggestive snapchats had stopped, Jace thought to himself, but he didn't say anything. They took off their shirts and sat on the edge of the pool with their feet in the water, sipping on their beers. Sebastian asked Alec about his time away and they talked shit while Jace downed his beer and then got into the water. Sebastian went back inside to get another round of beers and Jace swum back over to Alec. He glanced toward the area where they were to make sure no one was within ear shot, and even then, he kept his voice lowered.

"You still seeing Lydia?" He asked, trying to keep his voice casual, even though it was obvious from the way that he had swum over and was floating close to Alec that it wasn't. His cousins cheeks coloured and he ducked his hair, his dark hair ruffling in the breeze.

"Nah," he shook his head. "Uh..." he looked over his shoulder, toward the house just like Jace had before he continued. "It was Clary, actually—you know Izzy's friend on the cheerleading squad? She said that it wasn't fair to lead Lydia on like that." Jace was surprised for a moment that Alec felt he had to _explain_ who Clary was, but then he realized that he hadn't exactly been open with the relationship that he had with her, and since he didn't go out of his way to be sociable, Alec didn't just _assume _that he knew who she was. Still. Jace wasn't _completely _oblivious to people around them. She was the only new student in their grade for two years. "I don't know how she knew, but..." Alec shrugged. "So I told Lydia I wasn't interested anymore, which isn't _wrong_, although I felt bad...I still want to be her friend and everything, but I think that might be a bit awkward right now."

"Yeah, I get that," Jace nodded. Even though he didn't—he wasn't the same as Alec, he didn't feel things as deeply as him, didn't get attached as easily, which is why it was easy for him to be on talking terms with the girls he was sleeping with, without getting attached. "Good for you," he added.

"Yeah?" Alec actually looked surprised at Jace's response.

"Yeah," Jace nodded.

"I thought you would be all for me carrying on with Lydia and Jason at the same time," his cousin. "Since you do that all the time." Jace arched an eyebrow at his cousin, because he knew what he meant but it really wasn't the same.

"Yeah, but at least I'm _into_ pussy," he retorted. "And at least girls _know_ that there's no chance there's going to be something serious with me," he added. Alec shrugged but then his attention shifted because Sebastian was coming back out. Isabelle was behind him with a few of her cheerleading friends, and from that point on, people started arriving. There were some people that he hadn't seen all summer break, so it was good catching up with them, although Jace's eyes kept going to the sliding door of the house to see if a certain redhead had arrived. He assumed she was coming, although he hadn't asked Isabelle or Alec if she was.

Jace was in the pool and it was full with a lot of people around it when Isabelle pulled herself out of the water and waved. He wasn't paying any attention since Isabelle knew a _lot_ of people and was getting out to greet most of who arrived, but then Sebastian began swimming to the edge as well, so Jace looked toward the house and then he saw Clary. Over the music and the people talking and laughing, he couldn't hear her as she spoke to Isabelle, but he did notice that she was there with another guy. He was tall and pretty good looking, and he looked like he was older than them.

But when Clary tugged her oversized shirt over her head, Jace stopped paying attention completely to the guy with her, because she looked absolutely killer.

She was wearing a black one piece that was laced up from her belly button to her cleavage, there were skinny straps holding them together at the side and the back dipped low, with a couple of straps holding it together.

Clary found his eyes and she narrowed her own just a little, as though considering what she was thinking of him, but then she gave him a small smile and Jace felt this weird sense of relief and he swum after Sebastian to the ladder in the pool. Sebastian was already walking over to them, and the guy that was with Clary smiled and slapped him on the shoulder as though they knew each other.

"Hey," Jace greeted Clary as he reached them, picking up a towel from the fence around the pool and drying his face.

"Hey," she smiled at him, and Jace noted the way that Isabelle glanced at him in interest, but he didn't look at his cousin. "Uh, Jace, this is Jonathan. Jonathan, this is Jace." So the guy with her was her brother, the one who was living in New York. They didn't look the same at all, except for their eyes, which is why he hadn't thought that when they had first walked in.

"Ah," Jonathan's smile was tighter in the corners and it didn't quite meet his eyes. "You're the famous Jace." Now Isabelle looked even more surprised, and Sebastian did as well, but neither of them said anything. "Are you coming to the movies with us next week?" Jonathan continued and Jace's eyebrows raised as his attention shifted back to Clary.

"What movie?" He asked.

"_We're The Millers_," Sebastian spoke up, which surprised Jace, and he was pretty sure it was showing all over his face. "For Clary's birthday." Jace had never seen Clary and Sebastian interact before, but with the way he was saying this, it seemed as though they had discussed it before, and Jonathan seemed familiar with him as well.

"Yeah, sure," Jace nodded, trying to play off how confused he was with Clary and Sebastian.

And how..._Strange_ he felt about that.

"Perfect, well," Clary clapped her hands together, actually looking a little uncomfortable, which was a first. "Where are the drinks, Izzy?"

Jace didn't have much to do with Clary that night, just because she was with her brother and Isabelle for a lot of the evening, and Maia and Simon came in later and were in the little group with them. Sebastian was with Jace and Alec a lot of the time as well, so at least Jace knew that Clary wasn't off somewhere with Sebastian, but then he tried to reign that in, because it wasn't as though he had any say or any right over who Clary had anything to do with. He wanted to talk to Sebastian about Clary, and ask what was going on with them, but he didn't really know how to approach it, and after he had moved from beers to whiskey, he was really past having any kind of conversation with anyone.

"Hey, Jace?" Clary came up to him near the end of the evening, although Jace wasn't sure what time because he was pretty sure he had actually passed out at some point and then been woken up when Alec came in and pulled him off the couch in the lounge.

"Yeah?" Jace blinked at her, trying to make her into more than just a blurry image in front of him.

"You good? You need any water or anything?" Clary asked, tilting her head to the side, and her hair was tumbling all over the place, it was this big red blur around her face, and Jace reached out to touch it. "Do you need something to eat? Or drink? Jace?"

"No," Jace finally spoke and he reached out and tugged at her hair. It was soft, and he twisted it around his finger, staring as the strands tightening around his hand as he pulled. Clary blinked at him and Jace was trying to figure out what to say to her to make her stay, because she was crouching next to him and she kept looking toward the door as though she was going to leave. "I like you," he said, and the words sounded fine in his head, but his lips were sticking together and his tongue felt as though it wasn't forming the sentence right. "I like you," he repeated. "A lot. I like you a lot."

But it didn't work, because she was still pulling away, and it looked like she was frowning. Jace wasn't sure what else he was meant to say, but then Isabelle was coming into the lounge where he was sitting on the couch and she was talking in a low voice and ushering him up the stairs to a bedroom.

Jace woke up the next morning and was mortified by what he had said to Clary.

Especially since she hadn't said anything back.

He knew that people got sloppy when they were drunk and said random shit, but it just felt different when it was _him_ because he didn't _do_ that, and he also had never really liked a girl. The words had just come out with him fully processing them, and when he woke up and the memory had come crashing back while he was doubled over the toilet in the bathroom opposite Alec's room and then his whole body seized up and he was throwing up again.

She text him, and he didn't reply.

She rang him a couple of days later, and he didn't reply.

Isabelle was the one who came by before she was going to meet Clary and her brother and some of their friends for Clary's birthday, to go to that movie they had talked about, and Jace said that he wasn't going. Isabelle had looked confused and asked him what was going on, but Jace had just replied that he didn't want to talk about it. Isabelle hadn't looked happy at all, and there was a minute there when she crossed her arms and pulled her eyebrows together and Jace thought that maybe she wouldn't leave until she got the full story out of him, but then she threw up her hands in annoyance and stalked back to her car.

Jace wasn't good when it came to letting people get close.

Hell, other than his cousins, his best friends were Jordan and Sebastian, and he hadn't told Jordan that the girl he liked had actually been messaging Jace up until a couple of weeks ago, and he didn't even know if Sebastian had a thing for the girl that Jace was sleeping with.

Or _had_ been sleeping with.

He wasn't sure anymore.

But the point was, he wasn't even particularly close with his friends, and he was _fine_ with that. It wasn't like he had a problem with any of them, it was just that he didn't like talking about things that drew people close together, like his emotions and feelings and pretty much anything that required deep thought.

He didn't think it was anyone's _fault_, it was just the way he was.

It just meant that he felt awkward and strange about the way he blurted out to Clary—_several_ times—that he liked her.

Jace didn't see Clary until school went back. She had called him once the night of the movies and when he hadn't answered, she didn't leave a voice message and she didn't try calling him again. He had seen a couple of pictures of her go up on Isabelle and Sebastian's Facebook pages, but other than that, he had no idea what she had gotten up to. When they went to the first assembly for school, he tried to look casual as he had skimmed the crowds for her, and it hadn't been hard to find her, standing with Kaelie, Maia and Isabelle, but as soon as their eyes connected, she just arched an eyebrow at him and then looked away.

And it didn't get better.

Jace tried to act as though it didn't matter, as though that half a year that they had been fooling around didn't matter, as though the fact that he had feelings for the first girl in his life didn't matter.

Stephen Herondale had Jace working a lot more at his business. Stephen didn't usually spend lots of time on the work sites throughout the district, that was what his foremen were for, however now that Jace was in his last year of high school, and next year he would be working full time with the company, so he was taking him out a lot onto the job sites. Jace didn't mind the work, he liked being busy, although with the amount of work that they were getting in school since it was the senior year was making it difficult to keep up with both. It wasn't as though he was going to go off to university or anything, not like Alec or Isabelle or Jordan, so he didn't need to get perfect grades, but he still wanted to pass.

Plus there was the fact that Clary was around, even though they weren't really talking.

They had a couple of classes together, and they even got paired up together in Chemistry. None of it required pairing up outside of school, just in their study classes, and she was always polite, but it was obvious that she didn't want to talk about anything other than science. Jace had tried to ask her about her holidays and what she had done, but she just shrugged and said that they were fine and then moved back to talk about their project.

They obviously went to the same group of parties and he saw her dancing with Maia and Sebastian and Kaelie and Isabelle, and she always looked happy and excited and everything that had attracted him to her in the first place. He tried to squash that down and focus on other things, on other _people_, but when he was in a corner making out with Kaelie, he would hear Clary's laugh over the music. He would be flirting with a South African exchange student and he would catch a flash of Clary's hair out of the corner of his eye.

It was ridiculous.

He was a bit of a mess.

She was cheerleading every weekend at the games, whether it was football or lacrosse or basketball, and Jace would go and used the excuse that he was supporting Isabelle, but she just rolled her eyes because she knew it was a lie. He didn't really know _why _he went, because it wasn't as though Clary even spared him a glance, so he was just twisting the knife in his stomach even more.

Isabelle knew that something had happened between the two of them, and she asked about it on maybe a weekly basis. The fact that she kept on asking made it obvious to Jace that Clary hadn't said anything either, and he wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. It was a good thing because the least people knew about his shit, the better. But it was a bad thing, because then it made it feel as though Clary just didn't care about what happened between them, she didn't care enough to talk about it.

It felt as though this school year was the fastest one that Jace had experienced. Everything was in fast forward, and it sucked, because while Jace had no problem with the fact that he was going to work full time and it was going to be longer hours and he wouldn't have as much free time as he did now, it was more that Alec and Isabelle were already applying for colleges and they would be gone as quickly as they could. Isabelle was going to be leaving the week after they graduated to go on a trip to Paris with one of her friends that lived a few towns over, and Alec wasn't going to be too far behind.

And Clary would be leaving.

Jace wasn't sure of her plans, exactly, but she had said more than a few times that her plans were to go back to New York after finishing high school, and Jace didn't doubt that she would do what she said. She was that type of person, she went after what she wanted.

Prom was just around the corner and Kaelie had been dropping hints that she wanted Jace to ask her, but he really wasn't into the whole thing. He was going to go, but he didn't want to go with a date. He'd heard from Jordan that Sebastian wanted to ask Clary, but he didn't talk about it with Sebastian. Maia and Simon were going to go together, so he assumed that they were still going strong. Isabelle was going with Duncan Armstrong, a guy from the lacrosse team, and Jordan was going with Gretel Monroe, a girl from his History class. Alec and Jace were both going solo and they were fine with that.

Graduation was only two weeks after prom, and part of Jace wanted to reach out to Clary and talk to her about last year and everything between them.

But what if she had already moved on?

He hadn't heard that she was dating anyone, but it wasn't like she had a Facebook and so he couldn't exactly check her relationship status. If most people in their school were dating someone, it was easy to tell, they would be hanging around with them at lunch times and before and after school, but even though Clary had always been incredibly open and fun and sweet, she was also discreet. No one had known what was going on between Jace and Clary for those few months, even though girls usually talked about that shit, Jace was guessing that Clary didn't run her mouth like most of her friends, because nothing had gotten back to him.

So he was a little nervous when he was on his way over to his cousins place in his tux because a bunch of them were meeting up there to take a limo to the prom together. His actual mother had called that morning, not the step bitch, and had said that she wanted photos of him in his tux, and he had said that he would have some from Maryse Lightwood's place. She had hummed and hawed about it as though she actually had a say in the matter even though she had been gone since Jace was nine, and had then said as long as she got one of him by himself, then she was happy with it. He knew that Clary would be at the Lightwoods, and he flexed his fingers around the steering wheel as his mind went into overdrive thinking about what it was going to be like if she had a date.

And what she would be wearing.

And if she even cared that he was going to be there.

He parked his car alongside Sebastian's when he got to the Lightwoods, and there were a few other cars already there. He could hear laughing and talking inside, and he walked in slowly, taking the side door so that he would come in to the back of the lounge rather than be thrown into the spotlight coming through the front door.

Isabelle was the first one he saw, in a black dress that had no back and see through sides that pressed her breasts skyward and that dropped to her ankles and showed off her long legs with splits in the sides. She grinned widely at him, blowing a kiss before twirling around so that he could see the whole dress. His eyes moved to Alec, Sebastian and Jordan, all of them looking good in their tuxes, and then he saw Clary.

She was wearing a red dress that was short at the front and then dipped down on an angle so that it was long at the back, the short part right up her thighs so her thin legs were showing and the simple red heels that she was wearing. The top half was all lace, right around her body, and she was wearing a red bra, but it looked as though it was all made of red lace and maybe skin coloured material as well, because it was hard to tell the difference between the the dress and the bra. Her hair was out, although braided away from her face, falling down her back in waves. Her eyes were smokey and her lips were painted a bright red.

She looked beautiful.

She looked _incredible_.

"Might want to pick your jaw up off the ground," Alec murmured under his breath and Jace rolled his eyes, although pressed his lips together. He hadn't even told Alec about what had happened between, but maybe he wasn't keeping his attraction to her as under wraps as he hoped.

There were too many pictures taken for Jace to keep count.

Maryse was the designated photographer, and she was taking pictures of everyone there in a group, and then there were couples, and then there were the girls, and then there were the boys, and there were different poses, and Jace had never fake smiled so much in his life. They were about to leave with Isabelle insisted on Jace and Clary getting a photo together. Almost everyone was already outside since the limo had arrived, and it was just Isabelle, her date and Clary and Jace that were left inside with Maryse.

"_Yes_, you guys need to take a photo," Isabelle stated, and the way that she was pursing her lips together and tilting her head and narrowing her eyes, Jace knew that there was no way that they were getting out of this. Clary shot him a small smile that was nowhere near the same as the ones she used to give him or even the ones that she had been flashing people just ten minutes ago, and she moved to stand next to him.

They took one, which Isabelle said was terrible because they were both so stiff.

They took a second one, which Isabelle said was _still_ terrible and she rearranged them, Clary standing in front of Jace, his hand resting on her hip and then her head tipped to the side a little.

Jace didn't see the third photo that was taken, but Maryse said she would send it to him.

The limo ride to the venue was loud and crowded and there was a lot of champagne that was thrown around. The venue was at a race track and the after party that they were going to was at a hotel that a bunch of the seniors parents had gotten together and hired out two floors just for them.

The bonus of living in a smaller district with rich parents was that they knew almost everyone, and so a lot of people turned the other way at the fact that there were going to be about fifty underage teenagers at nice hotel getting drunk and high.

The prom was nice enough, Jace guessed, but this had never been something that he had been excited about. Several people were passing around a flask, Sebastian was one of them and so Jace got several swigs of the vodka inside, and then it was all just a mess of people dancing and taking selfies and eating average food and laughing and bad music. Jace sat down for most of the evening, at a big table that Isabelle and her friends had managed to grab for all of them right near the beginning, sitting with Sebastian and Alec. Except then Sebastian got up and danced with Kaelie and then Clary and then there was a whole lot of them that all danced together, and then Alec was pulled to his feet by Isabelle yanking on one arm and Maia on the other and Jace was at the table by himself.

It was nearly midnight, which meant that the prom would be coming to an end soon, and that was when the DJ put on a slow song, which Jace was pretty sure was by Whitney Houston. He was still alone at the table when Clary came over to him, a tentative smile on her face.

"I love this song," she said to him quietly, standing in front of him. Jace tried to listen to the words of the song to make out which one it was, but it was all just white noise, completely drowned out by the sound of his heart thudding in his ears now that she was standing there. Clary extended her hand out to him, palm upward, the silver bracelets on her wrist jangling and catching in the lights above them. "Dance with me?" Jace blinked and looked down at her hand.

He looked at for what felt like an hour but what he hoped was only a few seconds.

"I don't really dance," he finally said and Clary's expression faltered. He didn't want her to stop smiling and he hated that he was the cause of it. "Did you want to sit down?" He asked. Clary glanced at the chair beside him for a moment before shaking her head, and she was still smiling at him, but it was a bit sadder.

"No. I'm not missing the last dance of my prom," she replied, and then she stretched out her hand for a second time, but not quite as high or far as the first time, wiggling her fingers invitingly. "You sure you don't want to dance?" Jace knew that she was giving him another chance, but he was already shaking his head before he could really process it. Clary swallowed hard and shrugged, and then she was turning around and walking back to the dance floor, where most of the students were. Jace watched her link her arm through Maia's, and then they were moving through the crowds of their classmates and Jace couldn't see them anymore.

The after party at the hotel went until the morning, although Jace didn't drink as much as he thought he would. Unlike Alec, who was an absolute mess, and Isabelle ended up spending most of her time looking after him, insisting that she was fine and Jace should have fun.

Jace wasn't sure what time he stumbled back to the room that his dad had footed the bill for, but the sun was starting to rise. He had lost his tie _somewhere_ and he was pretty sure that his tuxedo jacket was still in Alec's room, which was next door, although he didn't know where he had taken off his shoes. He was unbuttoning his shirt when the door opened, and he turned around and Clary was standing there.

Her lipstick was almost totally smudged off, and she had her hair tied up in a ponytail now, the braids sloppy and half undone on the sides of her head, and her feet were bare, she was holding her shoes in one hand and her red, matching clutch in the other.

She had black nail polish on her toe nails, and it looked a little glittery.

It was cute.

"Hey," Jace said uncertainly from where he was standing in front of the double doors he had just opened onto the balcony.

"Hey," Clary nodded at him. She walked toward him, and he noted that she looked a little tired, her eyes drooping a bit and her eye make up smeared, and he thought that this was probably the first time he had seen her not full of life and vibrating with energy. She walked until she was standing right in front of him, and Jace swallowed audibly. He hadn't noticed it under the terrible lighting at the prom or in the limo before, but she had glittery stuff dusted over her cheeks.

It was sweet.

"Hey," Jace said again and Clary let out a giggle, and he could help but feel his heart swell at that.

He hadn't realized how much he had missed that.

He had tried not to think about it.

"Hey," she returned. Jace exhaled before lifting his hand to cup her cheek. She closed her eyes and tilted her head into his hand. Her skin felt smooth under his hand, and he stroked his thumb over the apple of her cheek. He wasn't sure what was happening between them right now, but he knew that if he had the ability to freeze time, he would do that in this moment right now.

The sun was warm on his back, and the breeze was gentle through his unbuttoned shirt, and Clary's head was resting against his palm and she looked content and happy.

They undressed each other slowly, and once they were naked, Jace picked her up easily. She was soft and supple against him and their mouths came together in a gentle kiss, their tongues in Clary's mouth, Jace's teeth pressing against her upper lip. The hand that wasn't supporting her weight traced down her back and this felt so completely different from every other time that they were together. It wasn't rushed and it didn't even feel like it was totally sexually charged, which was weird, since they were actually having sex, but it just felt so _different_.

It felt different from every other time that he had had sex with _anyone_.

There was this strange, heavy weight in Jace's stomach as his fingers trailed up and down her back, feeling the goosebumps rise on her skin, and the way that the sun was beginning to shine through the doors, over his shoulders, was watching her hair, making it look soft and glow and Jace pressed his hands to either side of her face, kissing her again. Her hair was as soft as it looked and she rested her hands on his hips, holding him there in front of her, nails digging into his skin.

Jace didn't want it to end as he moved so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed and Clary was sitting on his lap, her knees pressed against his hips, rolling her hips down onto him as her arms tightened around his neck. She adjusted the angle of her face, shifting the kiss, and Jace's fingers gripped her lower back, travelling lower, to her ass, and Clary took that as a hint to lift up and sink down on him.

It felt incredible to be inside her again.

Jace hadn't even processed that it had been almost a year and she was the last person he had had sex with. There had been other girls he had fooled around with, but not actually had _sex_ with any of them.

Clary's heat around him made Jace shake and Clary's breathing hitched as he thrust up into her. He felt her orgasm, her walls tight around, but he managed to hold off his own orgasm until she came again and then it felt like his breath was knocked out of him because she started pushing herself down on him harder. Their mouths were bumping together, hardly in a kiss, more just touching so that another part of their bodies were connected, and Jace groaned into Clary's mouth when he came inside her.

Jace fell asleep curved around Clary, with the sun coming in through the window, but he woke up in the bed alone with Alec banging on the door, telling him it was check out time.

The last two weeks of what was technically their school time was all studying and exams and Jace knew that final exams were important to Clary and so he didn't went to screw things up for her. Unlike him, she actually wanted to go off to college and so she had to do well. He barely saw her around, since school was broken up for the seniors and so they were only there for last minute study groups, which Jace wasn't interested in. The step bitch insisted that he at least make an _effort_, and she had whined about it to Stephen, and so Stephen had told him that he had to go to some of the study groups. He went to one, and it was apparently one of the only ones that Clary had actually missed, and so he had spent the whole time on his phone.

The night of their graduation ceremony, there were a ton of parties going on around town, as well as just out of town, since there were two other graduations that had happened in schools that were in a few towns over. Jace went to a couple of them with Isabelle and Alec, offering to be their sober driver since he wanted a clear head when he spoke with Clary. Except she wasn't at _any _of the parties that he went to, and when he ran into some of her other friends, they said that they hadn't seen her.

So it was nearly eleven o'clock in the evening when he showed up at her place, and her mother answered the door with an unhappy expression.

And then she told him that Clary had left for New York with her brother straight after her graduation.

**Let me know what you think x**


	2. Chapter 2

**This isn't edited yet, sorry, guys. I'll get to it.**

**02/01/2020 - Okay! This has been edit-ish. Lol. Took a while, but it's better than before!**

Jace wasn't sure how long he had been standing in front of the wine selection at their local grocery store.

He didn't drink wine, red _or_ white, and so usually he didn't buy wine, he would take beer or something to eat if he was going somewhere for dinner, but his father had specifically asked him to bring wine, so here he was.

He knew that Lauren Herondale, his step mother, drank red wine, so he just picked up the most expensive _white_ and headed toward the check out aisles. The girl behind the counter looked like she might have been about seventeen or eighteen, with thick black streaks in her hair that were clearly a home job and enough piercings in her ears that it looked like she would set off metal detectors within a ten foot radius of her. She also had an expression that said she wanted to be anywhere but here.

Jace could relate.

He paid for the wine and then headed out to his car, unlocking it from the key fob and then pulled open the door, practically throwing the bottle of wine onto his passenger seat before turning on the engine. His Camaro started with a healthy rumble, a car that he would never have been able to afford on his actual income, but it wasn't as though money had ever been a problem, given the weekly deposits from his father that were still being made, even after all of these years and many arguments between them.

A song by Highly Suspect started playing on the radio, and Jace turned it up as he turned on his air conditioning and steered the car out of the parking lot. Idris had gotten a little bigger over the past three or four years, there were a few new stores and there was talk of a mall going up, since while Idris was small, they were still the biggest out of the surrounding towns, for at least two hours in most directions, but even with it getting bigger, it still only took ten minutes to get from one side of the city to the other. Jace arrived at his childhood home and parked on the street. The step bitch's car was in the driveway alongside his fathers, and there was a familiar blue car parked behind them.

Alec's.

Jace hadn't realized that his cousin would be coming over tonight, and he felt at both times sympathetic that he had been dragged into this dinner with him and annoyed that Alec hadn't given him a heads up that he was going to be there.

Potentially his partner—and hopefully soon to be fiancé, if things went smoothly next weekend when Alec had big plans—would be there as well, and Magnus Bane always knew how to shake things up and keep himself as the centre of attention. Magnus also got along with pretty much everyone, so Lauren adored him, which worked well for Jace, because it meant that she wouldn't be paying any attention to him.

He was twenty-seven and still didn't like having to talk to his step mother.

_And_ he still referred to her as the step bitch most of the time.

Maybe not the most mature, but he'd hated her since he had met her, and even though that hate had lessened a smidge, with the work he was doing with his therapist, he really didn't see it disappearing anytime soon. Or ever.

Jace got out of his car, grabbing the wine from the passenger seat, and walked up to the house with his lips pursed together. He rolled his shoulders as he did so, both of them feeling tense, and he knew that he was going to need to get a massage and unwind sometime soon. He had barely taken a day off in the past three weeks, and even when he wasn't working, he was either catching up on sleep or working out or coaching the local kids basketball team or helping out his landlord at his apartment building, and so even when he had time off work, it wasn't really _off_.

Keeping busy was something he did on purpose, though, and other than maybe skip a few work outs to let his aching muscles relax, he wasn't going to slow down.

"Jace," Alec was the one who opened the front door for him, and he widened his eyes purposefully, making a face, and Jace was about to ask what he was on about when Magnus suddenly appeared in the hallway behind him.

"This woman makes the _worst_ prawn balls I have ever tasted," Magnus hissed. "How did we get roped into this dinner, Alexander? I had _plans_!" He stuck out his lower lip in a pout and Jace turned his eyes to Alec, not quite pouting because there was no way he could pull it off like Magnus did, but definitely looking a little accusing.

"You didn't have plans, Magnus," Alec rolled his eyes, although it was in a fond way that he only reserved for his family and Magnus. "You were going to curl up on the couch and watch_ The Bachelor_ and eat your body weight in that expensive chocolate Aline brought back for you from Paris."

"Yeah! _Plans_!" Magnus shot back and Alec just grinned before his gaze switched to Jace, and then his smile faded as he saw the expectant expression his cousins face.

"Hey, I didn't realize that we were going to be here tonight. We didn't know until an hour or so ago, or I would have given you a heads up," Alec said.

"Do you know what this is about?" Jace asked, looking over Alec's shoulder and toward the kitchen, where he could hear his father and Lauren talking, and there was music playing as well, although no one he recognized.

"I don't think it's about anything," Alec shrugged. "He just said that he was having dinner at his place and asked if I would come."

"And Alec isn't good at saying no," Magnus added helpfully.

"And I'm not good at saying no," Alec concluded, scrunching up his nose. Jace sighed as he walked past the couple and into the house, not bothering to take off his shoes. The floor got freshly varnished every second year or so, and there was a maid that came in weekly to make sure it was kept up to scratch, so Jace had never really thought about the considerations that others might have when walking over the beautiful wooden floors.

"Jace," Stephen nodded as Jace came into the kitchen. Jace barely acknowledged him, walking toward to the bench to put down the bottle of wine. He did what he could to avoid spending time with his father and his wife, but Stephen had caught him off guard when he had shown up at the police station, and Jace had just said that he would come to make him leave.

"Evening, Jace," Lauren sung out as Jace reached the kitchen and he raised an eyebrow at her before putting the wine down on the bench and leaving that room as quickly as he arrived. He headed out the back, to where the only member of this family that he actually _liked_ to see was sitting. As soon as he opened the back door, Anya jumped to her feet and bolted over to him, her tongue flopping out the corner of her mouth and her ears flailing in the wind as she ran toward him.

"Hey, girl," Jace grinned as he dropped to a crouch as the border collie reached him, nearly bowling him over as she threw herself at him. He laughed as he scratched behind her ears and then moved down a hand to rub her back. "How you doing? Your mum taken you out for a good run recently?" He looked back toward the house, and he could see Lauren drinking from a glass of wine in the lounge through the glass doors, and he rolled his eyes as he looked back at Anya. "I'll come by in the weekend and take you out, aye, girl?" Anya just kept on panting and Jace took that as a firm yes. Alec came out of the house as Jace was throwing the ball for Anya, and he moved to stand just behind Jace, his hands shoved into his pockets.

"Magnus doesn't actually mind Lauren, other than her cooking," Alec said idly, and Jace didn't reply. Anya brought the ball back, dropping it at Jace's feet, and Jace picked it up, throwing it again. "Come on, Jace. Let's just go back in there...It's been a while since you've had dinner with them, right?" Jace raised an eyebrow at Alec.

"You been checking up on me?" He asked.

"No," Alec snorted. "Just your dad asked me if Kaelie would be coming with you to dinner tonight, implying that he thought the pair of you were still together." Jace made a face as Anya came bounding back over, because that hadn't been the cleanest break up, but it really wasn't something that he was going to discuss with his father.

It turned out that Alec had been right, Stephen really didn't have anything important that he wanted to discuss after dinner.

At least, _Jace_ didn't view it as important.

Maybe it would have been for a close knit family, like the Lightwoods, but it really wasn't for him.

There was a lot of work that was happening a couple of hours ago, it was going to be at least a two year job, and so Stephen was thinking about moving. He wasn't thinking about it being a permanent thing, just for the duration of the job, but it meant that they were going to be gone for a while, and they didn't know if the new place that they were buying was going to be big enough for Anya.

"I'll take her," Jace offered before even letting Stephen finished. He was pretty sure that Stephen's discussion was more about the fact that he and Lauren were going to be moving away, but really, the only thing that Jace cared about was the fact that he got to take Anya home.

Dessert was uneventful, and Jace managed to get out of the place by eight o'clock, not even caring that he was leaving before Alec and Magnus.

He didn't care if his father was planning on moving out of time. In all honesty, maybe it was a good thing, because things were never _good_ when they were together, they never had been. Stephen had cheated on Jace's mother since before he was born, and he hadn't even attempted to hide it, flaunting it in front of both Jace and Celine Montclaire, and then he had gone and divorced Celine and gotten married to Lauren before Celine had even gotten the finalised papers in the mail. Jace had worked with his father when he was a teenager because that was what had been expected of him, and because he really didn't have much of a choice when he was fifteen. But two weeks after he had graduated school, he had gotten this idea into his head that he wanted to be a cop. And so he had studied harder in those next couple of months than he ever had at school, went to the academy, and for the past eight years, he had been working at the IPD—Idris Police Department.

And he loved his job.

It was strange, because other than going out on the work site with his father when he was in high school—which really didn't count as a job, since he just followed after his father who was a glorified supervisor—this was the first real job that he had ever had, and he was damn good at it.

Jace got back to his loft on the other side of the town—as far as he could possibly get from his father, although it sounded as though he would be doing him a favour and going even further soon, a few towns away, if Jace was lucky. He parked his car and got out, walking up the fire escape that zig-zagged itself up the side of the building, leading it's way up to the top floor, where his loft was. He unlocked the door and stepped inside, and reached out to turn on the light. The curtains in the loft were all still open, and he moved around the apartment to pull them shut, and then moved the kitchen, opening up the fridge.

There was literally one bottle of beer, two apples that both looked well past their best and a bottle of mayo.

It was more than just a little pathetic.

He was thinking about making himself a cup of herbal tea before bed—something that his therapist had suggested trying on the nights that he was actually home, when there was a knock at the door. Jace looked up at the clock on the wall, and it wasn't late, it was just before nine, but Jace wasn't expecting anyone. He glanced around, as though the loft would give him some answers as to who was at the door, before he walked over. He gripped the handle and opened it, and then Jace's eyebrows shot up as he saw who was standing there.

Looking incredible.

Looking beautiful.

Looking fucking edible.

_Clary_.

"Jace," Clary said, tilting her head to the side, and her glossy red curls tumbled over her shoulder. They were a slightly different colour than they had been when Jace had last seen her, a bit darker, and it seemed like there were streaks through it. For a moment, they just stared at each other, before she licked her lips and dipped her head in a small nod, as though to herself. "I thought that we could catch up," she held up a bottle of bourbon, flashed him a smile before stepping around him and walking into the apartment.

Jace was still a the door, his hand resting against the frame, staring at the empty space where she had been standing.

_Clary_.

"Wow," she was talking again, and Jace had to force himself to turn around and look at where she was in his kitchen, and it was her turn to be looking in the fridge. "I feel like some grocery shopping is overdue." She closed the fridge and put the bottle of bourbon down on the bench, opening up some cupboard as though she had been there a hundred times before. "You also might want to invest in some more kitchenware," she noted as she took out two glasses—half of the total amount of glasses that he owned. "Because only having four glasses, and...Two bowls and two plates...That's a little sad."

"I wasn't expecting company," Jace finally managed to say and Clary raised an eyebrow at him.

"Ever?" She asked and Jace didn't have an answer for that. She moved over to where there was a plant sitting on the edge of the counter. It had actually been a really pretty plant when it was being watered and looked after properly, but now it was dying and the flowers were completed wilted and brown and the leaves were beginning to curl. Jace swallowed thickly and ran his fingers through his hair before closing his door and then taking a few steps into his apartment. Clary poured bourbon into both of the cups and then carried them both into the adjoining lounge area, sitting down on a couch and holding out a cup toward him.

"What are you doing here?" Jace asked as he came into the lounge, but still standing a few steps away from Clary, resting his hand on the edge of the bench. Clary didn't look too perturbed by his comment, but then again, she never really had been.

"Here in Idris, or here in your apartment?" She asked, wiggling the cup in her hand, her arm still extended to him.

"Both," Jace answered, still remaining where he was.

"I'm here in Idris because I've moved back. And I'm here in your apartment to tell you that," Clary answered, and she threw back the bourbon in her own cup before putting it down, and finally dropped her arm with his cup, sitting in on her knee. Jace's eyebrows pulled together as he stared at her, Clary meeting his eyes steadily. He let out a heavy breath and then moved around to sit in the arm chair that was across the coffee table from the couch where Clary was. He reached out a hand and jerked his fingers expectantly, and Clary handed him over his cup of bourbon.

He finished his off as well and then put the cup down on the table and sat back with another heavy exhale.

Over the past nine years, since graduation and Clary leaving to go back to New York, Jace had seen Clary exactly three times.

Once was several months after graduation, when he had gone to New York to meet Alec and his new boyfriend, Magnus, and they had all gone out to dinner and Clary and Sebastian had been there. Jace hadn't even known what to say when he had seen them, and it was one of the only times that Jae had actually seen Clary look caught off guard. Sebastian's arm had been draped over her shoulder, and they looked absolutely comfortable with each other. Sebastian had looked surprised to see Jace as well, given they hadn't really stayed in touch after high school, and after a couple of drinks, he and Jace had spoken and it turned out that Clary and he had actually gone out a couple of times when they were in school.

Jace hadn't known about it, but then it wasn't as though he and Clary had talked a lot.

And they hadn't talked that night either, at least not directly to each other. He had left early, despite Alec's protests.

He had thought about texting her afterwards, and several times over the next few months, but instead, he had scoured Magnus and Sebastian's Facebook pages, because it seemed as though they both featured Clary, which Jace hadn't really caught given how busy his life had been at the time, going through the police academy, and the fact that she couldn't be tagged in them, since she _still_ didn't have her own profile. There weren't heaps of her, but there were a couple on Magnus' page and then one that was posted from Sebastian, and then another on Sebastian's page that _he_ had been tagged in, and Clary was with him, making a face at whoever it was who had taken the photo.

She looked happy.

Jace had _tried_ to stop looking obsessively at their pages for new photos of her, but it took a while. He knew it wasn't healthy, and then his coping mechanism was to throw himself to work, which was just as unhealthy, but he got through it.

Eventually.

The second time Jace had seen her, it was downtown Idris, just after Christmas. She was with her mother and her brother, and they were sitting at an outside table of a cafe, and Clary was making a face at Jonathan while Jocelyn was talking animatedly about something, her hands flying.

He had nearly crashed his car into the minivan in front of him staring out the window at them.

And the third time was just last year, when she had come to the station to surprise Luke. Her step father, Luke Garroway, worked with Jace, he had actually been his mentor for a year or so when he was working his way up from being an officer to a detective, and given the Idris police department wasn't big, they continued to have a lot to do with each other. Luke knew that Jace and Clary had had some kind of relationship with each other in high school, but he didn't know details, and he didn't press for answers. Clary had walked into the precinct and charmed the man at the front desk and he had brought her back to look for Luke.

Luke sat two desks behind Jace, which meant Jace had seen her when she came in, and her eyes had widened in surprise when she had seen him—so Luke clearly hadn't told her that he was working there—and she had hesitated by his desk, tapping her knuckles against the corner of it. But just as it looked as though she was about to say something, Luke noticed her and he let out a yell, getting his feet and holding out his arms to her. Clary had grinned and she had rushed to him, letting him sweep her up in a hug that lifted her petite frame off the ground.

They had left pretty quickly, and the next week, Luke came over to his desk and mentioned that Clary had gone back to New York, but she had said to say 'hi' to him. Jace had blinked, not too sure how to take it, and Luke had pursed his lips, as though wondering if he should say anything else. But he didn't, and Jace didn't ask him about it, and they carried on as usual.

And now here she was.

Sitting on his couch.

Jace leveled his gaze with hers and their eyes met steadily, and the longer they were quiet and Jace was watching at her, he realized that even though she was sitting up straight and her face was calm, and her eyes weren't exactly. There was something behind them that he hadn't seen before, almost an uncertainty, which he had never seen before.

"What's going on, Clary?" He asked, his voice soft. Clary licked her lower lip, as though realizing what he had seen in her face, and she took in a deep breath.

"I wanted to say I'm sorry," she finally told him and Jace's eyebrows flew up in surprise.

"What?" He uttered.

"I'm sorry," Clary repeated, her voice a little stronger, and she jutted her chin forward. "I'm sorry for what happened between us in high school." Jace stared at her in surprise, his eyes still wide. "I know we had a fight and then we kind of just stopped talking. And then...Then there was prom night and that just...Kind of felt surreal, and then I saw you with Alec and Magnus—"

"And Sebastian," Jace added.

"And Sebastian," Clary agreed, although she didn't show any kind of reaction to that. "And I guess I'm just saying that I'm sorry...If I was a bitch to you in high school and ruined whatever it was that we had, then I'm sorry." Jace stared at her for a bit longer, and it looked as though she was being completely honest with him.

She looked as though she completely believed what she had just said.

"Were you and Sebastian dating in high school?" Jace blurted out and Clary looked confused.

"Uh—no," she shook her head. "We went out a few times, but that was it."

"Sounds like dating to me," Jace mumbled and Clary snorted.

"No, that means we went on a few _dates_, we weren't in a relationship, which is what _dating_ implies," she replied. Jace didn't really know how to reply, because technically she was right, but back in high school, if you went on a few dates with someone, then you were dating, that was just how it _worked_. It wasn't until older that they graduated to going on actual _dates_ before you established that you were actually dating. He guessed that she had been ahead of the curve on that one.

"Was it while we were...Hanging out?" Jace asked and Clary pursed her lips together.

"Once was," she nodded. "I think it was that last time we were together, Sebastian had asked me if I wanted to go out to the movies with him." The stung. So the night that they had had their fight, the last proper time they had been together, the reason that she had needed to leave so quickly was because she was meeting up with Sebastian. "You...Weren't interested," Clary continued. "So what's the big deal?"

"The big deal..." Jace repeated back and then he sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. This didn't matter. What happened in high school_ didn't matter_. They were adults now, and years had passed, and while it was nice that Clary had been kind enough to stop by and give him the heads up that she was back in town, she wasn't obligated to do that.

She was just being nice enough to do it.

"Okay," Jace dipped his head in a nod. "Thanks for...Coming by." He sounded more formal than he had intended to, and Clary obviously heard that and arched an eyebrow at him. "Sorry, that—" he broke off and let out a laugh under his breath. "That came out—not the way I expected." Clary's smile came back, although it was only a small one. Jace took in a deep breath through his nose. "So...Do you have a Facebook yet?" He asked, grasping for something to say and Clary let out a laugh, her smile returning full force.

"You'd know if I had a Facebook, wouldn't you?" Clary winked at him and Jace felt a little off balance, a little turned on, and a lot happy, which was sort of how he felt with her before, so he just grinned and held put his glass for another drink.

* * *

It had been two weeks since Clary had moved back, and Jace had seen her exactly no times. He hadn't been _looking_ for her—at least not that he would admit—but he had expected to see her around, at least once or twice. Luke had been looking happier at work, and Jace had heard him talk about Clary a few times, but she hadn't come by at all.

"Jace," Alec didn't look particularly patient as he shifted from one foot to another and narrowed his eyes.

"What?" Jace asked, looking up from the papers on the desk. It wasn't as though he was actually reading any of them, he hadn't been focused today because he had only just finished his last shift about three hours before starting his next one, and so he wasn't running on much sleep. "Sorry, what were you saying?"

"You need to make sure you're getting _sleep_," Alec commented, his expression not looking so impatient anymore.

"I am," Jace replied.

"You're not," Alec snorted.

"I _am_," Jace said with a bit more force.

"You're _not_," Alec returned, a sassy look on his face that looked like a mixture of an expression between Isabelle and Magnus'. "You don't even remember that tonight is meant to be our engagement party." Jace's eyes widened.

"Oh shit...That's tonight?" Jace made a face. "Fuck, sorry. I'll be there. You know I will."

"Yeah, although if you come looking like that, I'm pretty sure my mum is just going to send you home," Alec said. "You kind of look like you're going to fall asleep in your chair." Jace wasn't going to tell him that he _had_ done that a whole lot of times, although Alec probably already knew that. Everyone told Jace that he worked too much, but he never listened to them, so it didn't really come up anymore, because there wasn't any point.

"You guys throw an engagement party together quick," Jace changed the topic back to Alec. Alec arched an eyebrow, so he obviously knew that Jace was just avoiding talking about himself, but he went along with it. "You only got engaged last weekend."

"You know mum," Alec couldn't help but grin. "She could throw a party together in a day if needed."

"Is your dad going to be there?" Jace asked and Alec shrugged a shoulder, although the corners of his mouth tightened.

"Mum invited him. I guess we'll see," he replied and Jace pressed his lips together, wishing that there was something he could say, but when it came to Robert Lightwood, there wasn't much. He had always been a good father and Jace viewed him as a second father himself, but about two years ago, it had come out that he had been having an affair with some young girl at his office. Maryse had handled it well, with incredible dignity, especially since they were in such a small town where everyone heard about the scandals and there were lots of whispers behind her back. Robert had moved away about three months after he and Maryse had officially went their separate ways, but Maryse had stayed, and her relationship with her children had become stronger. "Clary's going to be there," Alec added after a few moments of silence and Jace felt his expression shift before he tried to school it back to nuetral.

"Oh yeah? Well, you guys became quite close when you were in New York, right?" Jace said, looking down at the papers on his desk so that he didn't need to meet Alec's eyes.

"Her and Magnus are good friends, yeah," Alec nodded, and there was something in his tone that said he knew that there was something else. Jace looked back up as Alec glanced over his shoulder, maybe making sure that no one else was close enough to listen in. "I know that you had a thing with Clary in high school." Jace's eyes widened.

"Did she tell you that?" He asked.

"So you're not denying it then," Alec pointed out, and there was a smile on his face and Jace rolled his eyes, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned back in his chair. "Clary told Mags, and Mags told me." That was a little better than Clary telling Alec directly, but not by much. "Why didn't _you_ tell me?"

"There wasn't much to tell," Jace said, even though he knew it was a lie, lifting a shoulder. "It's not as though we were an official thing."

"But it meant something to you," Alec stated. "We knew that something was up with you in our senior year, we just didn't know what. And you weren't going to tell us, you never do." The words themselves almost sounded like an accusation, but from the way they were tinged with sadness, they don't come out that way.

"Yeah," Jace replied, letting out a heavy breath. "Yeah, it did." Alec looked surprised at Jace's honest answer, but then he smiled again, small but genuine.

* * *

There were a lot of people at the engagement party that Jace didn't know, and there were a few people that he _did_ know, but hadn't seen since high school. He was pretty sure that a lot of the people who were invited were probably by Isabelle, since Alec really wasn't close with a lot of people back from high school, but that was okay. Because Alec and Magnus both looked like they were the happiest people on the planet, and that was what tonight was all about.

And then there was Clary.

She showed up after Jace, surprisingly with Maia in tow, so obviously the two of them had reconnected. Maia looked beautiful in a deep blue dress and Clary...She looked breathtaking.

She was wearing a purple dress, strapless so it showed off her shoulders, short at the front and then long at the back, flowing out behind her, with heels, so she was nearly as tall as Maia. Jace swallowed hard when he saw her, throwing back the rest of his beer before turning back to the bar and asking for something harder.

"Jace!" Isabelle appeared at her cousins side, her eyes looking a little glazed, so Jace was guessing that she was already a couple of drinks deep. "How's _your_ evening going?" She asked with a grin.

"We're only an hour in, Iz. I'm pretty sure you're meant to ask that a little further along," he smiled at his cousin and she shrugged.

"Well, _maybe_ I had another reason to come over," Isabelle said and the smile dropped from Jace's face, wondering if Alec had told her about the fact he and Clary had a thing in high school. "Kaelie's coming," she announced and Jace lifted his eyebrows in surprise, mainly because what she had said wasn't along the lines of what he had expected.

"Oh," he was a little relieved.

"Are you okay about that?" Isabelle asked. "I didn't invite her, but you know, she's still good friends with Seelie, and Seelie asked if she could come, and I didn't really want to say _no_—but it's only been a couple months since your break up, and—"

"Iz," Jace interrupted her as the bartender slid his drink across the counter top. He picked it up and had a sip before resting his hand on Isabelle's shoulder. "It's fine. We're all adults here. And it's not really as though we were really dating, so it's not like there was much of a _break up_." Isabelle looked relieved, and she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Okay, great," she said. "Now, I want to go catch up with Clary—did you know that she was back in town?" Isabelle was already walking away, even as she was still talking to Jace, and he couldn't help but smile again, although that felt stretched as his eyes followed Isabelle over to where Clary was standing. Clary grinned when she saw Isabelle and they hugged tightly and for what felt like hours, so Jace was guessing that this was the first time they had seen each other since Clary moved back. And given he hadn't seen her around either, he wondered if maybe she hadn't been in Idris the whole time, maybe she was still moving between the two places. Jace watched as Isabelle and Clary talked, finishing off his whiskey and asking for another one, and then after about ten minutes, Clary looked over in his direction.

Her smile faltered for a moment, before shifting to a smaller, intimate one that felt as though it was just for him.

Robert showed up just before dinner, and he had a blonde on his arm. A blonde who Jace was guessing was the woman he had been having an affair with. Maryse was tight lipped as she saw them, and Alec and Isabelle both looked nervous as they glanced between their parents, wondering what was going to happen. But then Maryse went over and held out her hand to introduce herself.

"Mama Lightwood is a fucking badass," came a murmur from beside Jace and Clary was standing there. Jace nodded in agreement as Clary ordered a drink and then turned to face him properly. "Hey," she greeted him.

"Hi," Jace replied and she gave him a small smile. She actually looked a little nervous, and Jace wondered if it was because of the environment that they were in. Everyone was dressed up nice and on their best behavior, and Clary looked slightly out of her element. "I haven't seen you around."

"I'm still moving my things here," she told him, confirming what he had thought earlier. "So I've sort of only been here for a couple of days."

"And you're settled in now?" Jace asked, almost mechanically, because this felt like such a boring conversation to be having with Clary. It felt like an adult conversation that he might have with one of his work colleagues, but not with _Clary_.

And obviously she felt it to, because her nose wrinkled adorably, and Jace couldn't help but grin.

"Did you want to go outside?" She asked abruptly and Jace's eyebrows raised. Dinner had already been served and eaten, and he was pretty sure that there were going to be toasts in about an hour or so, so he figured that they could slip away unnoticed until then. Jace nodded and ordered another drink so that he would have one to take outside.

It felt..._Strange_.

It kind of felt as though they were on a level playing field.

Which may have been a first.

The place where the engagement party was taking place was a beautiful hotel about a forty minute drive from Idris. A lot of the guests were staying in the hotel, although Jace was planning on getting a ride back with Jordan that night, since he had a game in the morning, with the boys he was coaching from the primary school. The gardens out the back of the hotel were beautifully manicured, and there was a gorgeous water feature buried in the middle. There were a few concrete benches hidden in alcoves, and Clary stepped into one, sitting down and taking a sip from the wine glass she was holding. Jace sat down next her, knees turned a little toward her but eyes trained on the water feature.

"You want some?" Clary asked with a grin, and he looked over to see that she was holding a joint. Jace raised his eyebrows at her.

"You know I'm a _cop_, right?" He said and Clary just leaned in closer, quirking an eyebrow teasingly.

"You gonna use your cuffs on me, Officer Herondale?" She asked him, her voice purposefully lower, and that regrettably went straight to his cock, but he kept his gaze steady with hers.

"It's _Detective_ Herondale, actually," he corrected her and Clary let out a laugh.

"Come on, buddy," she nudged his arm with her elbow. "You've got the night off. Relax with me." Jace pursed his lips as he looked at her, but as she put the joint between her lips and lifted a lighter, he didn't protest, and so she lit it up. To be fair, he wouldn't do anything about some weed. He himself hadn't smoked in years, but he knew Magnus did regularly, and a few of his other friends, and he didn't care, there were bigger things to worry about in this world. "Hm?" Clary held it out to him, humming behind her closed lips. Jace looked down at the joint before taking it and bringing it to his lips. He inhaled, and that familiar taste filled his lungs. He held the smoke in for a few beats, mentally counting in his head, before exhaling and handing the joint back to Clary.

"Shit," he muttered. "It's been a while." She grinned at him. They were quiet for a few more minutes before Clary looked back over at him.

"I heard you coach a basketball team now," she commented.

"Uh, yeah," Jace nodded once. "And baseball." Clary smiled as she took the joint back from him. She was quiet as she finished it off, stubbing it out on the concrete bench beside her and then letting it fall to the ground. Jace knew he should probably call her out for littering, but he let it go.

"That's nice," she told him quietly. "I couldn't imagine you doing that in high school." Jace nodded again, tilting his head to the side.

"Yeah, you're right," he replied. "A lot of things have changed since high school, though." Clary made a noise of agreement as she sipped from her wine glass. They fell quiet again, but it wasn't a tense quiet, it was a companionable one.

"What else has changed?" Clary prompted. Jace looked down at their feet, at Clary's more than his own lilac satin heels she was wearing that were a little scuffed and where the toe was pressing down on where she had stubbed out the joint. He couldn't help but smile, because the little marks on her shoes and the fact that the nail polish on her toes was chipped was so like the girl that he had fallen for in high school that a wave of nostalgia rolled over him and he had to take in a deep breath. "Jace?" Clary nudged him with her elbow, looking completely unaware of what he was thinking.

"Uh...I...Became a cop," Jace began slowly. "I didn't really know what I wanted to do in high school, sort of thought that maybe I would just work for my dad or whatever, and I was never great at school or anything, so it was never like I was going to go get a fancy degree. But after high school I—I don't know, I got this weird idea in my head that I wanted to be a cop." He shrugged a shoulder and finally lifted his eyes from looking at Clary's shoes, looking toward the water feature in front of them, and he was pretty sure that he could feel the weed kicking in. He hadn't smoked since high school, and that old, familiar hazy feeling in his limbs, making the tips of his fingers tingle.

He forgot how much he liked this feeling.

And he forgot how much he liked the smell of Clary's shampoo.

She mustn't have changed the type she used.

"So I studied my ass off, got a lot of help from Maryse and...Luke," he glanced over at Clary to see what her expression would be, but her hair was hanging around her face and he couldn't see what it was doing. "Anyway, I got into the academy, and then I transferred here, and now I'm here."

"And you're dating Kaelie, and you're coaching kids sports teams and you're helping renovate the apartment building in that you're living?" Clary turned toward him, filling in the blanks with a—_proud_?—smile. "You know, in all that spare time that you have?"

"I..." Jace narrowed his eyes at her, tipping his head to the side with a small smile. "I only help out the building manager when I have spare time, no one really knows that—have you been checking up on you?" He rushed to ask and Clary leaned in, narrowing her own eyes and wrinkling her nose.

"How do you know I wasn't always keeping tabs on you?" She whispered conspiringly and Jace let out a surprised laugh as he leaned back. They were quiet again before Jace licked his lips and glanced over at her before focusing back on the water feature, carefully not looking at her as he continued.

"And I'm not dating Kaelie. I was kind of seeing her before, but I'm definitely not now," he corrected her. He saw Clary move out of the corner of his eye, but he wasn't sure if she was looking at him, or she was just shifting on the uncomfortable bench they were sitting on. "I think...Maybe we just got together because it was comfortable, we knew each other, had history back in high school and shit. It was...Easy, as bad as that sounds, and so I kept it going for longer than I really should have." He let himself look back over at Clary and he was surprised by the fact that she was nodding.

"Yeah, I get that," she murmured.

"You do?" Jace frowned. Clary had _never_ struck him as someone who just let something happen because it was _easy_. She had always been the first one to speak up for what she wanted and _demand_ it, it had been one of the most attractive parts of her personality.

"Yeah," Clary rubbed her hand over her face, pushing her hair back, behind her ear, which he was happy about, because it meant that he could see her face properly. "I mean...I think some of that comes with being an adult though, right? You just...Let things happen, even if you disagree with them, because it's not worth the fight." She sounded...Disheartened, and Jace hated it. He turned on the bench, not caring about the expensive suit pants that he was wearing as he folded a leg onto the bench between them so he could turn his body fully to face her. "Oh—don't worry!" Clary's eyes widened and she let out a laugh. "I'm fine, I'm just—I mean, I think you lose a bit of fire and shit as you get older. You have to."

"It's bullshit," Jace stated.

"Yup," Clary agreed before snorting in a ridiculously unladylike manner that Jace couldn't help but smile at. "This conversation got _really_ intense, that was not what I had planned." He lifted a shoulder and let it fall.

"I don't know. I kind of liked it," he admitted and Clary blinked at him. She looked as though she wanted to say something when their heads both jerked up as they heard someone calling them.

"Jace! Jace, are you out here?!" Jace wasn't sure if Clary wanted to be found out here with him, but she stood up when he did, giving him a smile as she picked her wine glass up from where she had put it down on the round while they had been talking. "Jace!" Isabelle looked relieved when she spotted him and rushed over. "It's time for speeches—oh my god, is that weed I can smell?!" She laughed and then her eyes focused on Clary and she abruptly stopped laughing, eyes flicking between them, head jerking back as she took the pair in. "If we weren't in a rush now, I'd want to have a discussion about this, but we'll hold it over for later." Jace rolled his eyes and took a few steps forward, purposefully taking Isabelle's arm and folding her hand into the crook of her elbow to lead her away from Clary so that she didn't try and bombard the redhead with a hundred questions before they joined everyone else inside. As he looked back over his shoulder, Clary was following them, giving him a grateful smile.

The speeches were about as painful as he expected them to be, standing there talking about his feelings and hopes and wishes for Alec and Magnus in front of a room of people, but he loved them both, so he gritted his teeth and did it. Thankfully, his one only lasted five minutes, and then he was no longer the main focus because Max was bouncing on stage and the kid was like Isabelle, he flourished under attention and Jace sat down with a beer.

Dessert was brought out and then there was more music. More people were dancing now, loosened up by the alcohol, and Jace had caught Kaelie looking in his direction more than once and he had firmly decided that his last beer was going to be his final one because he really didn't want to risk anything happening there.

"I'm pretty sure dancing is _not_ optional," Maryse sung out from behind Jace as she gave his shoulder a squeeze. Jace tipped his head up to look at his aunt and he noticed the way she was looking at a man across the room that Jace didn't recognize. He must have been some friend of Magnus', or maybe Magnus' family, although Jace didn't think he _had_ any family, at least that he talked to.

"I don't dance, Aunt Mar, you know," Jace told her and Maryse hummed under her breath, giving his shoulder another squeeze before wandering off. Magnus had had Alec on the dance floor for the past hour, and Jace was proud of his cousin, because Alec had never been good at dancing, but clearly he had been taking lessons, because he didn't look anywhere near as awkward as he had at a second cousins wedding that they had gone to three years ago.

Good on him.

Magnus brought out of the best in Alec, he really did, and Jace saw the way that they looked at each other, and he knew that they were in it for the long haul.

The music changed, to something softer and slower, and Jace looked over to see Isabelle asking some guy with red streaks in his hair to dance—someone who was _definitely_ a friend of Magnus'—and most of the people in the room were up off the their seats. Not everyone was on the dance floor, some people were just swaying nearby, but most people were nearby, and Jace was one of the only ones still sitting.

"So," came a voice from behind Jace and he lifted his head to see Clary standing there, her head tipped to the side. The make up under her eyes looked a little smudged, and her lipstick wasn't as dark as it was before, probably smeared off from eating and drinking. "I was wondering if you wanted to dance? With me?" Jace looked at her, and he was taken back nine years ago to Clary asking him to dance.

But he _hated_ crowds, and he had literally just had to talk in front of them.

And he _hated_ dancing.

"I...Don't really dance," Jace stated, similar to what he had just said to Maryse, and exactly as he had to Clary all those years ago. Clary just rolled her eyes though—he remembered her looking a lot more disappointed when he had said no at the prom—and she was already moving away from Jace, and towards Simon, who looked as though maybe he was watching Isabelle and the guy she was dancing with.

He _should_ have said yes.

There was still something there, something between them, something fragile but definitely still something.

That conversation that they had had out in the garden had been maybe the most honest it had ever felt as though they had been with one another, and maybe it was the nine years apart. They had both grown a lot, in different directions, in their own ways, but there was still a lot of their teenage selves when they had first met that they were still attracted to each other.

Or...Jace was.

He couldn't speak for Clary.

But he had just turned her down for a dance, when she was figuratively and literally extending a hand to him.

Jace bit down hard on his bottom lip and pushed himself up from the seat, his eyes seeking out Clary. He didn't dance—not by choice at all, he'd be forced to by family members a few times at weddings and he had fumbled through it, and there had been a girl he had seen for a couple of months took him to a club and they got drunk and _apparently_ they had danced—but he was sure that he could manage. Just this once.

It would make a point, it would mean something, so he could manage.

His eyes found her and he pursed his lips together as he saw her laugh, Simon's hand firmly clasped in hers as he spun her around on the make shift dance floor. They were at the edge and if he wanted to interrupt them and ask to take over, he easily could.

But he didn't.

Simon and Clary had an easy air about them, and even though it was a slow, romantic song that was playing and anyone could see that the pair of them were only friends, they were still comfortable and Simon drew Clary back in to him as he twirled her in, their bodies pressing gently together and one of Clary's hands resting on his shoulder while her other hand was held by Simon's.

Jace and Jordan left shortly after.

* * *

Clary had obviously settled in and finished moving shortly after the engagement party because Jace started seeing her around town a lot more. She had come into the precinct a couple of times, to drop by and see Luke, and she always flashed Jace a smile when she wandered past. They saw each other in the main shopping centre, and he saw her driving past pretty much every second day.

It was a small town.

It was to be expected.

It was _nice_.

"Alright, hustle—hustle!" Jace called out, waving his arms at the group of nine and ten years olds that he was taking today. "Jimmy, you doing okay? You want to switch out for a bit?" Jimmy Parkins didn't have _terrible_ asthma, but it was bad enough that he had to bring his inhaler to every practice and every game and sometimes he needed to take a break and have a puff on his inhaler before jumping back in.

"I'm good, Coach," Jimmy sounded puffed from the game, but there was no wheeze in his voice, so Jace trusted what he said. "Alright, I want everyone to have a drink and a orange slice and then meet back here and we'll go over next half, okay?" He said and there were yells from his team and he grinned. Not as though there was much of a plan for the second half. They were a group of nine and ten year old kids, they were just here to have fun, and Jace didn't let him get too wrapped up in the game.

Unlike some of the parents.

They seemed to think that their kids were auditioning for the NBA.

"Apple for the teacher?" Came a light voice from behind Jace and he turned around with raised eyebrows to see Clary standing there with a grin. She had a green ribbon in her hair, the colour of _Idris Primary School_, and a green shirt on, and Jace couldn't help but feel proud at her showing her support for his team. His assistant coach was Brandon Mitchell's dad, who was only a year older than Jace, and he shot a cheeky grin Jace's way as he spotted Clary looking up at him through her eyelashes.

"Thanks," Jace took the apple from her. "But I'm a coach, not a teacher. I don't have that much patience." Clary snapped her fingers in an exaggerated fashion in front of her.

"_Damnit_," she shook her head in mock-disappointment. "There goes the possibility of that fantasy." Jace let out a surprised laugh and he scratched at the side of his face as he ducked his head to look at the shiny floor. "Well, I have to say, you're doing a stand up job of our boys out there. Making their country proud, and all that jazz." Jace laughed again before looking up into the stands where parents and friends were scattered, and his eyes locked on one mother in particular, who could get _very_ vocal.

"That's definitely what some people think we're representing here," he hummed out and Clary rolled her eyes.

"I remember parents like that when my brother used to play soccer," she made a face. "It was funny at the time, because my mum was never like that, but it's just sad now that I'm older." Jace nodded in agreement and then his eyes shifted to where the boys were dumping their orange peels in the bin and starting to all gather together again and he turned back to Clary.

"I better get back," he said, feeling regretful. But Clary was smiling, looking completely understanding, and she nodded.

"I'll be watching..._Coach_," she winked at him, walking backwards towards the stands, and Jace couldn't stop himself from smiling. When he walked back over to his team and to his assistant coach, Tim Mitchell, smirked at him, wiggling his eyebrows.

"Who's your lady friend over there?" He asked with a knowing grin.

"She's an...Old friend," Jace mumbled before clapping his hands and looking back at his team.

The rest of the game was fun, and thankfully there weren't too many shouts from the parents in the bleachers. His team won, although only by a couple of points, but Jace didn't care. He always tried to teach the kids that it didn't matter if they won or lost, it just mattered it they had fun and worked together as a team, and he _knew_ that that was cheesy, but when he had played back in high school, his father hadn't come to any games, and he had only really grunted in acknowledgment when he came home with a win.

It wasn't healthy, and Jace wanted to try and teach the kids from when they were young that that wasn't the most important thing. _Most_ of the parents agreed with him, so that was good.

"You played a good game, buddy," Jace heard behind him as he helped Jimmy zip up his jacket all the way up. "High five?" He turned around to see Theo Martin grinning and slapping palms with Clary. "I saw you shoot a basket, it was good."

"I got two!" Theo announced and Clary grinned.

"I only got here in the second half, sorry," she gave him an apologetic look. "So I only got to see your second one, but it was _really_ good." Theo's father was coming over and Clary straightened up as Theo noticed him and waved at Clary before running over. Theo waved at Jace as well and Theo's father reached out to shake Jace's hand before they left and then Jace and Clary were left facing each other.

"So..." Jace began.

"So..." Clary repeated back. He really wasn't sure what was happening here. He didn't _not_ like what was happening, but Clary was acting as though they were old friends, and they _weren't_. Maybe that was on him, because he could admit that he was a grade A dick back in high school, but they hadn't been friends.

But maybe she was giving him a second chance.

"Do you have plans this afternoon?" Jace asked abruptly.

"Are you asking me out on a date?" Clary asked with a twinkle in her eye.

"Uh..." Jace pursed his lips together and tipped his head from side to side. "Probably not the kind of date that most girls would expect."

"Ooh, you've got me interested now," Clary grinned.

"Follow me back to my place?" He told her and Clary arched an eyebrow, and he knew how that sounded, but he didn't elaborate, leaving the ball in her court, up to her whether or not she was going to follow him in her care. After a moment past, Clary nodded, and Jace had to turn back around to start gathering up the rest of their things to hide the big grin that was spreading across his face. A few of the parents helped tidy things up as well, so did Clary, and then Jace was locking up the school gym and heading toward the car aprk. "So...Don't expect much," he told her as he approached his car.

"No expectations," Clary assured him. "I'm going in completely blind." She used to have a little hoop in her nose, but now she had a stud, and Jace noted that today it was in the shape of a tiny butterfly, which was cute. "Well, come on, coach! You've got zero expectations to fill!" Jace couldn't help but laugh and shake his head, even though he knew that she must have _some_ expectations and she was probably going to be disappointed when they got back to the apartment building and she realized what his plans were for the rest of the afternoon.

He really didn't _have_ free days, or free afternoons, or mornings, or whatever. He always had something on, something to keep him busy. He had been working for the past thirteen days, some nights shifts so that he had afternoons off for coaching and a few evenings that were spent with Isabelle before she had headed back to her life after she had taken two weeks off to come down to spend with her family.

She was talking about moving back, and part of Jace wanted her to, because he loved his cousin, but another part of him really wanted Isabelle to stay in San Francisco because she had an amazing life there and a great job. Magnus and Alec had moved to Idris—Magnus never made it seem like it was something that he did _for_ Alec, he made it seem like it was a decision that they had made together, but Magnus had _definitely_ moved to Idris _for_ Alec. It was when Maryse and Robert were breaking up, and Alec felt like he needed to be back home to support his mum. Magnus looked ridiculously out of place in Idris—Jace loved it. Even Clary moving back was a bit of a surprise, she had left, she moved back to New York, which had been where she _belonged_, but then she had come back?

Jace was trying not to overthink things and possibly jinx himself, and his fingers flexed around the wheel of his car as he drove out of the school parking lot. Clary was driving behind him and he realized for the first time that she was driving a nice car—not as nice as his own car, but it was a white Cadillac XT5 and couldn't be more than a few years old. It was nicer than anything Jace had seen Clary's mum driving, and he knew that Luke definitely was still driving a Honda that he had owned for nearly twenty years, so the money didn't come from them.

He realized then that he had absolutely_ no idea_ what she did for a living.

They got back to Jace's apartment building and Clary parked in one of the guest spots and walked over to him, a little skip in her step. She was wearing a pair of loose shorts that looked like they had a paint stain on the hem, which was good since they were going to get even more messy once they started working inside the apartment.

"So what you got planned for us, coach?" Clary grinned and wiggled her hands out at her sides. She followed as he walked over to the fire escape that wound up the side of the building to his loft apartment, and then into his apartment and she glanced around. "Do you always use that door over the front one?" She pointed to the front door on the other side of the kitchen, where she had come in the first time she had come here.

"Generally," Jace shrugged a shoulder. There didn't seem much point in going all the way around to the front of the building to the take the elevator up when he could just walk up the fire escape, which was right next to where he parked. Jace took his sports bag into his bedroom section of the loft, putting it down on his bag before shrugging out of his jacket and slinging it over a hook on the wall. "So..." he licked his lower lip before pursing his lips and looking back at Clary. "You know how I'm helping with some of the renovations of the building? Although—" he narrowed his eyes at her. "I'm still not sure _how_ you heard about it..."

"You're forgetting I have an inside man," Clary smirked and Jace's eyes widened as he realized.

"Luke," he muttered.

"He's told me you've listened pretty eagerly when you've talked about me as well," Clary grinned and Jace felt his cheeks heat up a bit. He cleared his throat and scratched his fingers through his hair, eyes dropping.

"Well, one of the residents down on the second floor moved out the other day. He's had the normal cleaning crew in, but he wants me to paint it before the new residents move in. It had a new kitchen and bathroom put in about a year ago, so it's probably the nicest apartment in the building," Jace shrugged.

"We're painting an apartment?" She clarified with him, and she didn't look upset or unhappy about the discovery, just thoughtful.

"Yeah?" Jace phrased it as a question, because if she said no, then he would completely change his plans.

Not that he wanted to _lead_ with that, though.

"That sounds cool," Clary grinned at him and Jace let out a sigh of relief, that was maybe a little too obvious because Clary's grin turned to a little smirk.

Jace had already put the base coat on the walls, he had maybe worked through a few nights when he had found it hard to sleep, and had already started with the light eggshell blue that the landlord had chosen out a while ago. He had painted the hallway and one of the bedrooms, and the window seat that was unique to just this apartment. Jace offered Clary another shirt to wear, something that be didn't mind getting paint on it but she had just laughed and said that she was used to getting paint on pretty much everything that she wore and she also had the best stain removers after trial and error. Jace had raised his eyebrows at that before they talk the elevator down to the second floor where Jace already had everything laid out and ready. He had spare roller brushes as well, which was lucky.

Clary took off her shoes as they found their own spots in the living room, on the big sheets that Jace had spread out on the carpet and taped over the skirting boards, and her nail polish was bright pink, and not chipped at all, so it must be new.

They were cute, peaking through the paint stained material, kind of endearing.

Jace had a bluetooth speaker that he connected to, and instead of going to his usual rock playlist that Clary might not be into, so he just put on a top 2010's playlist which he wouldn't mind and he was sure Clary would be okay with, and turned the sound up. He wondered if Clary would need any pointers, but she seemed to know what she was doing, arm moving in confident, flowing motions, and he vaguely remembered back in high school that art was her best subject. He didn't say anything, though, because she seemed absorbed in what she was doing, and he set about painting his own wall, opposite her.

It felt...Strange. Domestic. Like it could be normal.

And that made his stomach roll over and his heart beat faster in his chest.

Clary started humming under her breath to one of the songs that came on, and Jace recognized it. It was a pretty song—heartbreaking, but pretty—_Unsteady_, and he couldn't help but glance back at her. She didn't look at him though, just kept on painting, and so he did the same. He had heard the song enough times to know the words and for it to evoke emotion, but it just felt...Different with Clary humming it behind him, and it made him wonder if they could have had a _thing_ nine years ago.

If they had both been a little different, they could have had this sooner.

It wasn't until almost two hours later that they took a break, Jace coming over to stand behind Clary as she lowered the roller brush to her side.

There was something _static_ in the air as he looked down at her. Clary swallowed hard, and he brushed at a strand of hair that had fallen from the bun her hair was in, the green ribbon now gone, and there was a smear of eggshell blue on her cheek. When he touched the pad of his thumb to it, it was dry, and he let his fingers shift until his hand was cupping her jaw.

Then he was leaning forward, and she was letting her head rest back on the still-drying paint, and their lips were coming together.

**I don't really have the energy for a paragraph thing sorry. I've been fucking spiraling for the past six weeks or so, although I guess I had my birthday? Which was okay?**

**Um...****_Nightmare _****by Halsey is a fucking anthem and I don't know how many times I've listened and cried to it in the past day and half it's been out.**

**Hope you enjoyed the update.**


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